STUTTERING

Nov 10, 2008 Asha Sharma

STUTTERING

Asha Sharma*

Stuttering is one of the problems of speech. Person who stutters has the problem to speak fluently, mostly the initial letters of the words. Actually stuttering is not a disease. In our society, there are several myths about stuttering. People believe that it happens if somebody lies or child is scared by someone/with something. Some people take it as the curse of god. Stutters use starters (Youknow.. ., You see. . ., Well. . ., .Yes.., Uhh.. ..).The reason behind stuttering are imitation, environments! social pressure, accident, hereditary etc. It may be a consequence of frustration, shame, guilt & lowered self esteem. Knowingly or unknowingly people are misbehaving with stutters in our society. People make fun of stutters, laugh towards them, dominate to them and imitate their habit. It seems simple but affects badly in psychology of stutters causing negative emotions, feelings and perception such as shame, guilt, frustration, embarrassment, lowered self esteem, lack of self confidence. Isn’t it bad? Our fun for few minutes is affecting someone badly, lowering their self confidence and forcing them to live life with frustration. We can’t imagine life without love, without self respect, without dignity and life full of humiliation. The visible facet of stutters is spasmodic hesitation, prolongation on first letter of wordlfirst word of sentence and repetition sounds. The invisible facets of slutters are tightening of the muscles of valsalva mechanism, irregular breathing patterns, negative emotion and perception such as shame, guilt, frustration, embarrassment, lowered self esteem, lack of confidence; fear of particular speaking situation, use of starters and fillers, avoidance techniques, holding back, eye contact avoidance, tendency to stand still, speaking in low voice. Stuttering is not merely a fluency problem but a set of problems that reinforce is another. Although about 1% of the total population is stutter, no attention is paid on this issue in our country. There is lack of awareness among the peoples, inadequate speech therapist and lack of advocacy in this issue in our country. Service of available therapist is confined only in certain hospitals of the city but most of stutters are from the rural areas of the country and they are away from its solution and are living a humiliated life, People of urban areas who are near to the service are not aware about this problem. Stuttering maybe corrected by visiting speech therapist. We shouldn’t humiliate the stutters instead love them and encourage them to visit a speech therapist.

This Article is collected from Annual Bulletin of SCoH. The Author is Student of Bsc. (Hons.) Ag.7th Semester.

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